School’s out for summer and Nanny of the Month is taking the opportunity to salute the zealots within the otherwise laudable anti-bullying movement. They take a real problem–few things are more loathsome than picking on the vulnerable–and bungle the response, as has been done with most every “get tough!” effort from D.A.R.E., the failed anti-drug program, to all the idiotic iterations of the “zero tolerance” fad.
Do we really need to ban trash talking at high school sporting events? Do we really need attorney general investigations of foul-mouthed jocks? And for the love of whatever remnants of common sense remain in our schoolhouses and statehouses, do we really need to fight bullying with jail cells?
Not only did this month’s top nanny introduce a bill that would criminalize speech deemed to be bullying–up to a year in the clink!–she introduced a bill that, according to UCLA First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh, is not limited to speech about children (despite it being touted with the typical “for the children!” justifications). Volokh notes that the bill, if passed, could punish harsh speech directed at journalists, academics, celebrities, politicians, and the like, if the speech results in “substantial emotional distress.”
Presenting the Nanny of the Month for June 2013: New Mexico State Rep. Mary Helen Garcia!
About a minute-and-a-half long.
http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/06/28/anti-bullying-bill-could-jail-people-who
Bet this anti-bullying law doesn`t apply to the police and their bully technics on the streets and durring their nazi interrogation technics.
Hey All ,In reference to the D.A.R.E. “programming” My Son came home frome the 4th or 5th grade asking me for the definition of this new DARE thingy acronym and I said it stood for Drugs Are Real Expensive,his teacher was all excited and so I had another meeting with the programmers telling them to program some ignorant sheeps kids as me and mine were immune.
Steve
ROFLMAO, good one there Steve. Good attitude. 🙂
You mean the legal ones right? Illegal painkillers are supposedly cheaper to buy in the US than the ones you are prescribed.
They tried to pass legislation here in AU that offending someone with speech was illegal. We do not have any actual codified rights as far as I am aware.